The growth of interest and participation in the Internet has led to a clamor for more ways of accessing Internet based applications. Consumers now use the Internet for tasks which a mere five years ago were considered to be the sole territory of the personal computer. Web based applications now allow people to store, access, modify, and retrieve, among others, their calendars, bank transactions, e-mail, telephone messages, appointments, and contact lists through the Internet. These same consumers now want the ability to access these Internet based applications anywhere using physically smaller devices. Of course, this must be done without compromising the lowest common denominator among most consumers—the personal computer (PC) based Internet browser. Accordingly, any solution must preserve the Internet application's workstation centric core. However, at the same time these applications should also allow such diverse devices as WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) enabled mobile telephones, palmtop computers, regular telephones, and personal digital assistants (PDAs) to access its functions.
To answer the above need, a number of solutions have been attempted with mixed results. Web based applications have been customized to run on these smaller devices with the devices accessing them through specific web portals. Such an approach is, unfortunately, quite expensive. Not only is a rewrite of the application required for each and every device type, there is also no guarantee that the rewritten application will have the functions of the original application.
Another attempted solution is the shrinking of web browsers so that they can run on these devices. Unfortunately, the applications, optimized for PCs, are not suitable for such an approach. The small screen (if any) and the limited capabilities of the devices have led to consumer frustration with this approach. Furthermore, the relatively slow speed of the connection between the device and the portal, normally through a wireless modem, also leads to consumer frustration.
Another drawback to such devices is the lack of scripting capability of the browsers of such devices. A further wrinkle to the problem is the need to customize each attempted solution to a specific device platform. A solution which may work properly with a WAP enabled cellular telephone may not work properly with a PDA and vice versa. Also, what may work with a cellular telephone is almost guaranteed not to work with a regular telephone connected to a PSTN (public switched telephone network).
A suitable solution to the above should be flexible, scalable, and must work equally well with any and all devices which are currently being used to access the Internet. Such a solution should also be transparent to the user and should facilitate rather than hamper a user's access to the Internet application.